Personally, I’m not brand loyal to any particular OS. There are good things about a lot of different operating systems, and I even have good things to say about ChromeOS. It just depends on what a user needs from an operating system.
Most Windows-only users I am acquainted with seem to want a device that mostly “just works” out of the box, whereas Linux requires a nonzero amount of tinkering for most distributions. I’ve never encountered a machine for sale with Linux pre-installed outside of niche small businesses selling pre-built PCs.
Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer, whereas Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun. These two groups of people seem as if they’re very fundamentally different in what they want from a machine, so a user who solely uses Windows moving over to Linux never made much sense to me.
Why did you switch, and what was your process like? What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?
When I started on windows, and even with the textual pseudo-GUI’s of DOS, once you got it working you could customize the hell out of everything(or it didn’t pretend otherwise), and it would just continue to work until something physically broke or I broke somethin; with a tweak I would generally just undo and get back to it.
Windows is nothing like that now. My phone is more customizable, smooth, enjoyable and stable than Windows(OOBE, anyways). Its arguably better at things like, idk, working with scanners, which Windows insists are dark magic only the manufacturers can help you with(TWAIN was literally cleaner, and still is, when you can lift the hood to find it); I’m not saying its all-that-weird to need a driver - what’s weird is refusing to look for an entire device-category until a third-party app tells you how, when EVERYTHING ELSE is basically plug-and-play, including the printing functions of networked copiers or fax machines.
Rant from this-specific-day’s bullshit at work aside, my first experiences were with an Amiga and some Apple ii’s, OS2Warp was an experience that barely struck me as much-different than what I was used-to, and I’ve messed-around with Macs as much as much as anyone.
What’s weird isn’t moving away from Windows, basically the most overtly Black Mirror-esque OS of what’s out there today. What’s weird is how hung-up people are on it.
Every brain-controlling or addicting substance or species on Futurama has more to offer; Windows, like facebook, is trying to be the ads injected-into dreams. Who the hell wants that?